ADVERTISING:The 1980s saw a number of popular advertising campaigns based on conversations and short stories. Here, award-winning copywriter CATHERINE DONNELLYremembers the campaign for Power's Gold Label, a nugget of social history
HE NOTION of an advertising campaign around short stories came from the art director, Mal Stevenson. I wasn’t even the designated writer on Powers – there already was a writer in place. In fact, I had to audition for the job. I duly wrote my short story, but it was felt mine was not demonstrably superior to the work of the assigned writer. By now I badly wanted the job and, in a fit of pique, tore my short story up. (I wasn’t known as Prima Donnelly for nothing.) This was in pre-computer days, so there was no copy – other than a carbon copy that, fortuitously, Mal had held onto as, in the end, I got to be the writer.
Actually, looking back, getting the campaign off the ground was an uphill struggle. The client liked it, but felt that people had no interest in reading long copy. (This was pretty bad news for me – I always wrote long copy.) Then John Fanning, managing director of the agency, McConnell’s, had an epiphany. He would prove that people would read the ads – prove it beyond doubt.
At that time, McConnell's also handled the Sunday Tribune. It was arranged, in tandem with research company Behaviour Attitudes, that we would run the ad in 100 copies of the paper for pre-selected individuals who had their Sunday Tribune delivered. On Sunday afternoon, Behaviour Attitudes would phone each of the 100 readers and gauge the response.
I’m afraid I nudged the scales a bit by using, in the selected ad, the stark headline, BULLOCKS! I was hoping that the sample readers would be sufficiently hung-over and vulnerable not to immediately realise that the word had to do with livestock. (Oh alright, I cheated a little bit.)
But, by day’s end, Behavior and Attitudes was able to report that every single one of the sample had not only noticed the ad and remembered what it was for – they had read it to the end. We were up and running.
The campaign continued to have its odd hairy moments. There was the pub owner who said his pub had been used without his permission and it was instantly recognisable in the illustration. As Mal had used an amalgam of five locations for the particular drawing – the township, a slew of different sea-side towns; the pub, a mixture of three different buildings – this seemed to be stretching it a bit. But the owner was adamant. I’m afraid I can’t remember how they sorted it out – well, it was nearly 30 years ago. I can’t remember where I put my Laser card five minutes ago. For my part, I would have told him that if his pub was so recognisable he owed us money for the free advertising.
It was an extraordinarily successful campaign. And the reason for this was not that they were good ads in themselves – nice wee stories, charmingly illustrated – but because they were quintessentially Powers. Everything about them sat easily with the brand. Those ads couldn’t have been for anything else.
Often you have terrific advertising – water-cooler advertising that everyone likes and everyone talks about – but they fail in their primary task simply because the brand was the last thing on the advertiser’s mind. You can’t come up with a good idea and then solder your product onto it as an afterthought. The consumer might not know what it is that makes them feel uncomfortable – even while they’re laughing their heads off at the ad itself. They feel uneasy because they don’t believe it; it doesn’t fit. And that explains the success of the Powers short story campaign – it was a perfect fit.
We had a bit of quiet fun during the making of the ads. All the barmen’s names were drawn from the staff of Peter’s Pub. Which might explain why the entire suite of Powers ads still hangs on the walls of that pub. In one of the ads, we used our house in Ranelagh – possibly on the basis that I was unlikely to complain or demand money. And, as Mal was shortly to be married, one of the stories had to do with a best man who loses the wedding ring. (His didn’t – possibly because the scenario outlined in the story made him extra vigilant.)
It was brilliant fun to work on and when, like everyone else in advertising, I look back on a time when all the days were sunny and all one’s ads got passed – rather in the manner we recall Irish summers where ne’er a drop of rain fell and all our food was barbecued – I think this is one occasion at least where it really was as good as I remember.
